Anaesthetic, Sleep and Aware Parenting

Recently our son Boston had to be put under anaesthetic to have a CT scan. This would be his fifth time under and the past has been a bit traumatic for different reasons, whether it was the anaesthetic experience itself or surgery that went along with it. I wrote a post about how those experiences had affected his sleep, more precisely how they affected him falling asleep (What Boston’s Body told us about Sleep).

This time around I had concerns “Would we be back to traumatic sleep times????” but my wonderfully wise friend from Katesurfs.com reminded me of the Aware Parenting Tool Symbolic play! In short;

Symbolic play allows you to make games around situations that may be scary, confusing or traumatic to help children process and release emotions.

Since the CT I have played a little game with Boston before he falls asleep. I sit up next to him on the bed and get him to place my hand over my mouth, to symbolise a mask. Then I take a HUGE exaggerated breath in and flop down on the pillows snoring loudly. HE LOVES IT! Bursts out giggling and gets me to do it over and over, then he does it to himself but is too busy giggling to actually pretend he is asleep. I knew it must have made an impact when he woke in the middle of the night and got me to do it, then went back to sleep straight away.